Neutrality

Neutrality, the legal status arising from the abstention of a state from all participation in a war between other states, the maintenance of an attitude of impartiality toward the belligerents, and the recognition by the belligerents of this abstention and impartiality. Under international law this legal status gives rise to certain rights and duties between the neutral and the belligerents.

The laws concerning the rights and duties of neutrality are contained, for the most part, in the Declaration of Paris of 1856, Hague Convention V, 1907 (neutrality in land war), and Hague Convention XIII, 1907 (neutrality in maritime war). One of the first recommendations of the last convention was that, when war breaks out between certain powers, each nation wishing to remain impartial should normally issue either a special or general declaration of neutrality. Such a declaration, however, is not required by international law. A neutral state may, during the course of the hostilities, repeal, change, or modify its position of neutrality, provided that such alterations are applied without bias to all belligerents.

The most important of the rights that result from a state of neutrality is the right of territorial integrity. Belligerents may not use a neutral’s territory as a base of operations or engage in hostilities therein. This right applies not only to neutral territory and water but extends to air space above that territory as well. Under the Hague Rules of Air Warfare, 1923 (which never became legally binding), neutrals have the right to defend their air space from passage of belligerent aircraft. The emergence of ballistic missiles and space satellites as tools of warfare, however, has raised questions regarding the extent of a state’s upper boundary.

A neutral also has the right to maintain diplomatic communications with other neutral states and with the belligerents; the right to demand compliance with its domestic regulations designed to secure its neutrality; and the right to require belligerents not to interfere with the commercial intercourse of its citizens, unless such interference is warranted by international law.

The events of World Wars I and II foreshadowed a breakdown of some of the basic concepts of neutrality. With the German invasion of Belgium, the Italian invasion of Greece, the British occupation of Iceland, and the passage by the United States of the Lend-Lease Act (1941), the traditional rules of neutrality appeared no longer viable. By the middle of the 20th century new developments in the law of neutrality were evident. (1) The total character of modern war, with its use of economic as well as mechanized means of warfare, has sharply reduced the traditional area of freedom of the neutral. (2) Under the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, neutrality, as a permissive legal status, disappears for those members that the Security Council “calls upon” or requires in specific instances to take military or other measures of coercion against an aggressor (Articles 41, 48). (3) The socialization of national economies may result in a lessening of neutral trade; many business enterprises that could formerly trade with belligerents as private traders could no longer legally do so as state enterprises.